Stockpile Stewardship Plan: Second Annual Update (FY 1999); Executive Overview
Washington DC: Department of Energy, Office of Defense Programs, 1998. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Wraps. 40 pages. Illustrations. Acronyms. Stockpile stewardship refers to the United States program of reliability testing and maintenance of its nuclear weapons without the use of nuclear testing. Because no new nuclear weapons have been developed by the United States since 1992, even its youngest weapons are at least 26 years old (as of 2019). Since the United States has also not tested nuclear weapons since 1992, this leaves the task of its stockpile maintenance resting on the use of simulations (using non-nuclear explosives tests and supercomputers, among other methods) and applications of scientific knowledge about physics and chemistry to the specific problems of weapons aging. It also involves the manufacture of additional plutonium "pits" to replace ones of unknown quality, and finding other methods to increase the lifespan of existing warheads and maintain a confident nuclear deterrent. This Executive Summary discusses the U.S. stockpile stewardship nuclear weapons program which addresses: surveillance (predicting and detecting problems), assessment and certification, design and manufacturing, simulation and modeling, strategic computing, and tritium production. Condition: Very good.
Keywords: Stockpile Stewardship, Nuclear Weapons Program, Surveillance, Assessment, Certification, Design, Manufacturing, Simulation, Modeling, Strategic Computing, Tritium Production
[Book #78375]
Price: $60.00